


the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

by tosca1390



Category: Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“This won’t do.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Do elaborate,” she says when he does not speak, tilting her head. </i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Grimacing, Anthony leans in and rests his hands on his thighs, his chair creaking with the shift of his weight. “Your leg.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts), [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts), [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> cackles. cackles a lot. 
> 
> For all the enablers out there. You know who you are.

*

“This won’t do.”

Kate blinks up at her husband, her book resting on her belly. She really was going to catch up on her reading; what a novel thought, to have time to read for pleasure. The last months have been a whirlwind of social events and bee stings and weddings and strange husbandly behavior, and so she really has missed reading. 

Perhaps this leg injury won’t be quite so bad. 

“Do elaborate,” she says when he does not speak, tilting her head. 

Grimacing, Anthony leans in and rests his hands on his thighs, his chair creaking with the shift of his weight. “Your leg.”

“There’s hardly anything to be done about it now,” she says, a bit testy. After an afternoon of love words and teasing, this is hardly the evening she imagined. 

He grins a little, the taut lines of his face softening with it. The man carries the weight of his world on his shoulders, and she wishes he would let her help. But that conversation is for another day, she imagines. A day when she has not nearly died and he hasn’t been terrified of both his and her mortality. 

“Your injury poses difficulties in our sharing a bed, wife.”

“You have made me well aware of that fact,” she retorts, proud to only blush a little bit at the apples of her cheeks. He had made her blush quite harder only hours ago. Eventually, she will lose this awful ingrained sense of propriety; in social situations, she can understand it, but this is her own bloody husband, and she’d rather not be sheepish or strained in front of him. 

The grin melts into one of his devilish smiles, his eyes very bright in the candlelit room. She resists the urge to tear herself from the cast and climb all over him in that blasted chair. He does so enjoy when she climbs over him. 

“Your mind is a wicked place, Kate.”

“And yet you married me anyway,” she counters, shifting uncomfortably. It’s only been hours, and she’s already horribly achy from sitting for so long. This, indeed, is a punishment. At the moment, worth it to hear him say he loves her. But that is just for the moment. 

“I married you because of your mind, among other assets,” he says with a low laugh. “However, I mean to say that sleeping in this bed with you may be a problem.”

“Why on earth - “ and then she pauses, silences herself. 

Anthony moves quite a lot in his sleep. For a man so stoic and still in everyday encounters, he is quite restless in sleep. Kate, too, is restless; but now, it presents an issue, due to the delicate nature of her leg injury.

“Oh,” she says, oddly disappointed. Since their marriage, except for his absolutely insane behavior of the past few days, they have never slept apart. She has grown to look forward to the weight of his body on the other side of the bed. Just sleeping next to him made her happy. “Yes. Well, that makes sense. Of course you should - or -”

“Kate - “

“These are technically your chambers,” she rambles on, touching her brow. “So I should retire to my rooms, if you’ll just help me - “

His hands land on her shoulders, startling her into silence. “I’m going to propose something radical,” he says, edging her just slightly over to perch on the bed next to her. He is all heat and muscle as she rests her hands on his thighs. 

“A vacation?” she drawls.

His mouth twists. “Not quite,” he says. “Though we didn’t have much of a honeymoon trip.”

“I was joking,” she says, suddenly horrified. “You’ve done quite enough for me.”

“I don’t think that’s ever possible, but that’s besides the point,” he says, leaning into kiss her brow. “What I am going to propose may shock you.”

“Even more than your obsession with death and your fear of bees?” she mutters. 

“Probably not,” he says easily, affection in his voice. “I think that I will sleep here tonight.”

She stares at him with clear skepticism. 

“With you,” he adds, a hand sliding up to stroke through her hair. 

“Do you see that ending well?” she queries, eyes shifting to her leg and back. “You’ve kicked me once or twice already.”

“You most likely started it,” he retorts, his hand moving through her lovely thick hair. She can’t help but lean into the touch, keeping his gaze. He has opened himself up so awfully much in just days. She knew him - knew him well better than he thought she did - before all of this love confessional nonsense, but now to have him so startlingly frank and emotive will take some adjusting to. Of course, she can hardly think he’s about to weep her name and profess his love for her in front of hundreds of the _ton_ at Lady Danbury’s next event, but it is different. He is already different with her, and she likes it. If she hadn’t already fallen in love with him, damnable man, she most likely would have all over again. 

Damnable man, she thinks again. 

“Even so, do you honestly think that’s a good idea?” she asks. 

Anthony’s mouth thins, leaning in closer to her. His thick chestnut hair falls across his brow, and she reaches up to push it out of the way, to run her fingers through the softness of it. 

“Probably not. But I don’t want to sleep without you.”

“You’re a sentimental fool all of a sudden,” she murmurs, tipping her head back against the headboard. 

“Perhaps I always have been.”

She snorts. It’s horridly unladylike and he likes it. Well, with the sisters he has, no wonder. Eloise seems like the kind of woman to snort and laugh without any sort of shame. God forbid women enjoy themselves, she thinks crossly. 

“You and I both know the shaky truth of that, but I’ll let it slide, seeing as how you pulled me out from underneath a carriage,” she says lightly. 

His eyes narrow in a cutting look. “If you’d rather I not - “

“Please, regain your sense of humor sometime soon, husband,” she says with an exasperated sigh, leaning into kiss him. “And prepare to help me dress for bed.”

“Do you truly need to dress?” he murmurs, voice low and wicked as he touches his lips to hers. 

She sighs. What a long month of rest this will be. At least it makes a novel story.

*

The novelty of injury wears off very quickly for Kate. 

Indeed, three days of bedrest is quite enough for her. She feels rejuvenated. Her leg doesn’t truly hurt at all, really. She can absolutely hobble around the house and perhaps even sit in the front parlor. 

She tells Anthony this, just as he wakes from sleep in the morning. He’s been quite good at not shifting too much during sleep, miraculously. Though he sleeps with his arm around her waist, he has managed not to injure her in the course of the evening, and indeed has been quite courteous and well-meaning for the last three days. 

“I think I shall go downstairs,” she tells him as soon as his eyes open. 

Anthony stares at her blearily, his eyes bright and lovely even with sleep. She loves the mess and tumble of his hair in the mornings, when he is disheveled in a way only she will ever see. Her chest is tight with all the love she has to bear for him. 

“Downstairs?” he repeats, voice hoarse. He sits up, bed linens falling to his hips, exposing his bare, dark-furred chest to her view. God, he’s a damnable handsome man. 

“Yes, downstairs. To have tea and sit like a civilized woman,” she says, exasperated. 

His gaze slides from her leg, propped up and stabilized, encased in its cast, and back to her eyes. “Are you proposing to fly?”

“Don’t be absurd,” she says, waving a hand at him. “I can hobble.”

He catches her hand and brings it to his mouth, his tongue touching the tips of her fingers. “As much as I’d like to charge admission for such a delightful scene, that’s not going to happen.”

“Do you honestly think you can stop me?” she asks, slightly breathless as he makes love to her hand. 

“I think I won’t have to, darling,” he says with a lopsided grin all the Bridgerton boys seem to have been taught at birth. “Do you think you’ll be able to even get out of bed on your own?”

She pulls her hand away from his with a deep frown, cheeks awfully warm. “I’m certain I could manage it.”

“And then get down the rounded flight of stairs on your own?”

Thinking about this for a moment, she crinkles her nose as her brow furrows. “You don’t have to look so damnably smug,” she says crossly. 

Laughing, he leans into kiss her soundly, his hand gentle in her loose hair. “Bedrest is to be your lot, wife. It will be quite… restful,” he teases before sliding out of bed and striding to his dressing room, naked as the day he was born. 

“You _really_ don’t have to sound so smug about it!” she hollers at his retreating back. 

His laugh reaches her ears through the door, and she scowls. God, sometimes she hates him. 

*

Two weeks of bedrest, and Kate is desperate. 

“His walking sticks?” Daphne Basset, Duchess of Hastings, repeats dubiously. 

“Yes,” Kate hisses, fixing a determined look on her sister-in-law. 

Daphne, perched delicately on her chair at Kate’s bedside, watches her cautiously. “And this is going to serve your purpose how?”

“I don’t know. I’m inventive.”

Smiling, Daphne rises, the skirts of her pale-blue day dress full and soft. “I do like the sound of this. Where are they?”

“In his study,” Kate says, sitting up off of the headboard and linking her hands together in her lap. 

“How glorious,” her sister-in-law says with a wicked gleam in her eyes, and moves to the door. “I’ve always wanted free rein in there.”

“Just the walking canes, if you would,” Kate says, slightly pained. 

Laughing, Daphne slips out the door. Kate sighs and cranes her neck, trying to look out the window. It is July now; everything is slick with heat and sweat, a heavy haze lingering in the air, and Kate has been stuck inside – stuck in her bedchamber, really – for all of it. She’s antsy and tired of being abed, and despite her best efforts (including a very enjoyable interlude yesterday with her husband in which she put her hands to good and productive use), Anthony still refuses to let her venture downstairs. She knows he could carry her – he’s done it before, and quite well – but there is something terribly overprotective possessing him currently that’s both sweet and also ill-directed. 

She has to get out of this bloody god-forsaken room, and she’ll blaspheme until she does. Therefore, it is past time for desperate action. 

So, when Daphne comes for a visit, and with Anthony in meetings across town, her chance arrives. 

Daphne returns shortly with two of Anthony’s walking sticks – the nicer ones, Kate notes with relish. “So, what is your grand scheme?” she asks, walking to Kate’s bedside. 

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Kate mutters, detaching her plaster-encased leg from the poster and swinging herself gently off the side of the bed. “Good god, I haven’t moved like this in ages,” she says with a groan.

Daphne wrinkles her nose. “You do look bedded.”

Kate rolls her eyes. “Your brother wishes,” she mutters. 

“Oh, I didn’t need to hear that,” Daphne says with a sigh, glancing Kate up and down. “Would you like a day dress, sister dear?”

“That might be helpful,” Kate says, glancing down at her nightshift and dressing gown. “Would you ring for the maid?”

Daphne hands Kate the walking sticks and waves a hand. “Don’t you fret, I can take care of it.”

“That’s highly improper for a duchess,” Kate says with a grin. 

“I’m highly improper for a duchess, but that hasn’t stopped the duke from enjoying it. Besides, I’m positive my brother has bribed the staff into not assisting you in your endeavors, so it’s just as well to be me,” her sister-in-law replies gaily before turning on her heel and moving into Kate’s dressing room. The rustling sounds give Kate pause for a moment, but she then takes the walking sticks in hand, sets her feet gingerly on the ground, and slowly – very slowly – inches her weight from the bed to the walking sticks. 

“God,” she mutters, elbows shaking. “I’m a limp bloom.”

“Good lord, you’ve already gotten up,” Daphne says as she sweeps back into the bedroom, a red-sprigged muslin dress across her arms. 

“I am stubborn, as I’m sure your brother complains incessantly,” Kate says, balancing her weight on the walking sticks. With a strange sort of half-hop, half-limp, she manages to move towards the middle of the room. It’s a strange sensation to be upright and managing her own weight once more. Every time the maids come into change the linens, Anthony will just pick her up and hold her until they’ve finished. She secretly loves it, even if it does make her feel unbearably out of control. 

“Complains? I think it’s all admiration,” Daphne teases with a warm smile. She approaches Kate with the dress and makes quick work of her dressing gown. In short order, Kate is dressed and halfway towards feeling like a normal human being once again, though her hair is a wavy mess all down her shoulders and back. 

“Do you?” Kate murmurs, leaning her weight on the walking sticks. Good lord, she doesn’t quite remember being so off-center. 

“I do,” Daphne says smartly, coming around to face Kate. “I’ve never in my life seen him so worked up about anyone like he was about you, even before you two came to your senses and became engaged.”

Kate blinks, mouth slightly agape. “You are quite outspoken, aren’t you.”

“Coming from you, I find that a compliment,” Daphne says with a laugh. “Now, shall I dress your hair?”

*

It is decided to leave Kate’s hair as is; no one will see her anyway. She’s just looking for a change of scenery, of pace, of soul-crushing boredom. Getting out of the bedchamber and down the hall is nothing difficult. Getting down the stairs takes more negotiating. But somehow, between the two of them, they are settled in the front parlor. Kate props her leg up on a chair as she sits in her favorite settee, as Daphne rings for tea and settles herself in the chair Anthony prefers. 

A flush touches Kate’s cheeks as she recalls just _why_ Anthony prefers that chair, but there’s no need for Daphne to know that. Secrets between spouses, after all. 

“I am a terrible hostess,” Kate says with a sigh as the maid brings tea and exists with a hurried curtsey. All the staff seem appalled to see her downstairs, and she wonders just how much of a fright she looks. 

“Nonsense,” Daphne says, pouring them both tea and handing Kate her saucer and cup. “There’s no need to play hostess with family.”

A strange warmth blooms in Kate’s middle. “I suppose you’re right,” she says after a moment, smiling. 

“Apparently Edwina has been visiting Eloise and Francesca,” Daphne says, breaking off a piece of chocolate biscuit. “Lord knows what terrible influence Eloise will have on her.”

Kate smiles at the thought. “Not Francesca?” she asks, thinking of the sixth Bridgerton, the quiet Bridgerton; even Anthony doesn’t seem to know what to make of Francesca. 

Daphne hums. “Francesca is – well, she’s the quiet one. Lord knows where she got it. But she has spirit. She knows what she wants, even if it takes her a while to fully realize it. But once she does, she takes it. She likes control,” she says, tilting her head. Her chestnut hair, so like her brothers’, shines in the thick afternoon light. “But she’s quiet about it.”

“An admirable feat in the Bridgerton clan,” Kate says with a smile. 

“It’s a miracle all of us survived thus far,” Daphne says dryly. “Oh, I can’t wait to tell Colin of your ingenuity. I do believe he’s a bit infatuated with you.”

“Colin is a generously-hearted man,” Kate says, sipping her tea. The air feels quite different, even just being downstairs. “If he ever loses his temper, it will be in a fantastically unexpected situation.”

“Very much so,” Daphne laughs. “I can only pray I’m there for it. I do love it when my brothers receive their comeuppances.”

Daphne stays for another hour before she must return to Hastings House, and leaves Kate with a kiss to her cheek and an invitation to dinner once she can convince Anthony to let her leave the house – “We’ll set up a footstool for your leg and everything!”. The maid clears the tea and Kate is left quite alone and quite content in the front parlor, watching the street outside with interest. There are weddings to plan and balls to attend and musicals to plan. Kate has always felt outside of the _ton’s_ hustle and bustle, just from sheer financial difference, and now she sits at the center of it, still outside. 

In a way, she’s glad for the leg. She likes having her own time, her own space. She’s never been one to enjoy the gossip and whirl of the ton, and now she has the perfect excuse to take more time to settle into her new life. 

That doesn’t mean she is content to sit in her bed for the next two weeks and wait for her husband to come home by any stretch of the imagination. 

She lingers in the parlor until just past five, and then takes the walking sticks in hand and heaves herself back up the stairs. It wouldn’t do for Anthony to come home and find her outside of bed; he’d have an apoplectic fit, which would amuse her if he hadn’t been so bloody caring these past two weeks. But she hides the walking sticks in her wardrobe, behind her wedding dress, all the same; to have an avenue of escape is essential.

*

Three weeks in the cast, and the jig is up. 

Kate is halfway down the front stairs, hair loose and day dress mussed from the efforts to dress alone, when the front door opens abruptly and Anthony strides in. His gaze finds her and he halts immediately, face frozen. Kate, too, freezes. Her fingers grip tightly around the handles of his walking sticks. 

“Hello, husband,” she says at last, cheery though her leg is aching and her brow is heavy with sweat. A heat wave has settled on the city and nothing brings relief; she can’t even bear being skin to skin, though it isn’t as if there is much chance of that with a split wrapped around her leg and her husband treating her like porcelain. 

For once, however, he seems at a loss for words. 

“I – Kate –“

“It’s not a problem,” she says quickly, beginning to inch herself down the stairs once more. 

Her movement seems to break the spell of shock on him. Anthony all but growls and moves up the steps, meeting her a third of the way. “What the _hell_ are you doing?” he exclaims. 

“You can’t have honestly expected me to remain upstairs for a month,” she says, looking up at him. 

He opens his mouth and shuts it once more, looking rather like a fish. She smiles and edges past him, moving onto the landing and towards the front parlor. 

“Kate, you are – you’re on bedrest!” he sputters at last. 

“Quite right. And I am about to rest right now,” she says, taking a seat on the settee as he follows her into the parlor. With a slight grimace, she sets her leg on the footstool already positioned for her, and reaches for her book. 

Following her, Anthony blinks owlishly. “I thought something looked amiss in here,” he mutters. 

“Because you pay such close attention to the furniture placement,” she drawls. 

He sits down in his chair across from her, brow furrowed. “Are you trying to hurt yourself?” he demands rather crossly. 

To hell with ladylike behavior. Kate rolls her eyes and tosses her book at him. It bounces off of his chest with a low thump, and he grunts with it. “I know you’re not an idiot, Anthony, so I plan on ignoring that question. What on earth are you doing home anyway? It’s the middle of the day.”

He sends her a withering look. “I had planned on spending a bit of time with my bedridden injured wife. Do you know where she might be?”

Suppressing a grin, she tilts her head. “My lord, have you lost your wife? How careless.”

His eyes gleam dangerously in the hot July sunshine. “For the love of god, Kate – “

“For heaven’s sake, Anthony, I am not an idle woman!” she exclaims, crossing her arms in front of her. “Did you honestly expect me to remain abed quietly and complacently?” 

He stares at her darkly. “For the sake of your health, perhaps yes, I did.”

“I am being perfectly careful,” she says, exasperated. “I have not left the house, and I have not attempted anything remotely human, like walking to the kitchen or dancing. But really, Anthony, it isn’t as if there is anything remotely entertaining to keep me in bed anyway!”

Mouth curving slightly, he cocks his head. “Is that so?”

Wrinkling her nose, she looks out the front windows, mutinously silent. 

“I have been going about this the wrong way, haven’t I,” he murmurs. 

“There is no right way when it comes to cooping your wife up in the house. People must think you’ve murdered me or shipped me off to America by now,” she mutters. 

He laughs, deep and easy. She glances at him, a bit startled. Though endowed with a great sense of humor, Anthony is not a man easy to laugh. She likes that he laughs when she is funny (perhaps not so much when she is not trying to be so), and she is relieved to hear him laughing now. 

“I do love you, Kate,” he says with a smile that lights up his eyes from within. “We shall sit here until you are satisfied.”

“And then?” she dares to ask. 

His gaze darkens. “And then, I shall take you upstairs and show you how exciting your bedchamber can be.”

Lips twitching, she rests her hands flat on her skirt. “I am under strict orders to abstain from vigorous exercise,” she reminds him, her cheeks flushed. 

Now, he smiles wolfishly. “All you will have to do is lay back, madam. This, I promise you.”

“Is this going to end with me tied to the bed?” she asks warily, though she does feel a pulse of heat in her middle at the thought. 

Anthony just grins, and rises. “Have you had your fill of society yet?”

She blinks, and merely raises her hands to him. “I believe so, yes.”

It takes a moment of negotiation, but soon he has her in the cradle of his arms, her splinted leg hooked straight over his forearms. She wraps her arms around his neck and grins as he walks to the stairs. 

“I wish I could have done this from the first,” she says, “instead of having to procure your walking sticks”

“I’ve been looking for those,” he mutters as they head upstairs. “They’re my nicest ones, Kate.”

“Don’t blame me. Daphne chose them.”

“I should have known one of my siblings would be in on this,” he says with a drawn-out sigh. 

She stifles a snort as they hit the second floor landing and turn down the hall towards their bedchambers. “Darling, I do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your entire family is aware of my ingenious scheme to travel one flight of stairs,” she says dryly. 

He glances at her, gaze wide. “Even my mother?”

“She thought it quite clever,” she says with a smile. 

She feels more than hears the growl rumbling in his chest as they enter the bedchamber. He kicks the door shut behind them and sighs. “What the hell am I to do with you?”

“Putting me back in bed might be helpful,” she says. 

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

“But just smart enough for yours, of course,” she drawls. 

Gently he lowers her back into bed, and secures her injured leg in the sling he, Colin, and Benedict rigged up weeks ago from one of the posters of the bedframe. “I have half a mind to just tie you up and leave you be,” he says lightly. 

She goes still at the mental image, her breath caught in her throat. Flushing, she swallows hard. 

Anthony’s eyes go quite wide, and then quite bright. His teeth gleam white in his devilish smile. “Sweetheart, I think you like that idea.”

“Shut up,” she murmurs, voice breathy. 

His hand skims up her uninjured leg, under her skirts to touch bare skin as he settles next to her on the bed. “It will have to wait until you are without your splint. Because I will not be gentle.”

“Anthony, for – “

He leans down to kiss her soundly, his fingers drawing light patterns on her inner thigh. She shivers and moans into the kiss, her hair falling about her shoulders. 

“It is extremely hard for me to be gentle now,” he murmurs. 

“I wish you wouldn’t be,” she pants against his lips. It feels as if an age has passed since he touched her last; everything has been kisses and words and the barest of hands on skin. The leg is hard to negotiate concerning anything else. Now, he has touched her for mere moments and she is all flushed with desire. Even with the summer heat, all she wants is the weight and press of his muscled form against her own. 

“Soon, Kate,” he breathes against her mouth, his fingertips circling her knee. “Very soon.”

With one last kiss, his tongue light against hers, he is up and off the bed. “I will be retrieving my walking sticks. And then I shall return. What book shall I bring you?” he asks, straightening his waistcoat. 

Pushing the hair from her eyes, Kate glares at him. “I do hate you sometimes.”

“Not as much as you love me, though,” he says with a laugh. 

“No, I suppose not. Or there’d be no point,” she sighs. 

With a warm smile, Anthony leaves the room. She thinks she can hear him whistling down the corridor. 

Kate leans back against the pillows and glares at her leg. There is very little else to do, other than cut it off. 

He does return with multiple books. Instead of leaving, as she had thought he would need to, Anthony strips down to just his shirt and breeches and stretches out in bed with her. He brings paperwork of some kind with him, and for the remainder of the afternoon they lay together and read, sometimes punctuating the stillness with a kiss or a comment. 

It’s quite dull. It’s quite complacent. 

But, as he presses his mouth to her knuckles and laughs so hard it reaches his eyes, Kate isn’t sure she minds very much at all. 

*


End file.
